Upon second look, Denny Hamlin winks at speedway medical staff

It took five days but Denny Hamlin, not NASCAR, cleared the air about his missing the March 23 Auto Club 400 in Fontana. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was pulled from the lineup less than an hour before the race, supposedly because of a sinus infection.

It later was revealed he had a piece of rusted metal removed from his left eye. The object was spotted and removed by an unidentified optometrist at Loma Linda University Medical Center after Auto Club Speedway infield care doctors made the decision not to let him race. Three days of silence triggered speculation throughout NASCAR.

“My health is my business, but what if it was cancer or a tumor? I don’t have to tell anyone that. It’s my business,” Hamlin said the Friday before racing at Martinsville, Va. “Because I’m out there a little bit more, people think I got out and I party. I don’t drink at all hardly, ever. I’ve never done drugs, ever. I’m as clean as they come.

“I don’t know why people question who I am outside the race track. I worked too hard to get here for one to throw it all away. Within our NASCAR community rumors become truth when enough people say it. I’m done.”

Hamlin previously experienced sinus conditions and carried a CT scan into the Fontana care center. As the condition worsened on race day, he returned to the center.

“I stayed in the infield care center for a couple hours and we tried to go over all the possibilities of what it could be and, since they didn’t see anything in it, the only thing we could do was get an optometrist to come to the race track, which it was too late into the day for that,” Hamlin said. “It was too late for me to go to one and come back in time so everyone came to an agreement that the best thing for me was to go to the hospital and get scanned in case.”

Advertisement

Upon arriving in North Carolina, Hamlin followed up on the sinus path, just in case. He also had the rust, which had hardened by then, removed and was cleared to compete at Martinsville.

“I wanted to race, of course, no matter what. I felt like if I was going to be a liability I would have pulled myself during the race, but there’s protocols that we have to go through and it’s not just my safety that has got to be taken into account,” he said. “We’re racing around other guys and that’s one of the fastest tracks we go to.

“The staff that looked after me was the same staff that was in the hospital with me for a few days in California last year.”

In 2013, Hamlin spent a day in the hospital after a breaking a vertebra in a late-race collision with Joey Logano.

“They go above and beyond and it’s unfair to put it on, whether it be the infield care center or nurses that work with NASCAR, them under responsibility for not finding it because it took a specialist to find it,” he said. “There were two separate, perfectly good doctors in the infield care center at California (Dr. Debbie Bervel, the speedway’s medical director, and Dr. Javier Perez, emergency room physician) and both of them could not see it. It took someone who was in the business of eyes to find it. The track hates me.”

Motorcycles return

John Ulrich, publisher of Roadracing World, has fond memories of motorcycle racing in Southern California. He was, after all, an Ontario resident when he won his world championship racing for Team Hammer, which he still owns.

So he’s bringing back Superbikes and Sportsbikes back to the 16-turn road course at Auto Club Speedway. The bikes have been absent from the speedway calendar since 2010 after a seven-year run and will return as part of the three-race Geico Motorcycle Superbike Shootout.

The Yamaha Southern California National will start the series April 26-27 in Fontana and feature the Pacific Nationals at Sonoma Raceway (May 3-4) and the Mountain Nationals at Miller Motorsports Park (May 24-25) in Tooele, Utah.

“When we started this, there were no national-level, professional motorcycle road races scheduled west of the Mississippi river for the 2014 season,” said Ulrich, whose Team Hammer Productions is the organizer. “We wanted to do something to make sure the fans in the western part of the United States had an opportunity to see their favorite racers in action.

“We decided to increase the number of national-level road races in the United States for the fans, for the teams and for the riders.”

In addition to the two featured classes running on both days, other classes will compete. MAV-TV will broadcast a pair of one-hour shows from each of the series stops.

“We looked at the model of the successful British Superbike series,” Ulrich said. “They have a lot of classes and a lot of races on a typical weekend, with a few featured races on TV. I started looking for regional events at good racetracks that fit in the 11-week gap between Daytona and Road America and started making deals.”

Ulrich, whose son Chris carries on the family racing tradition, said racers have embraced the concept.

“I was walking through the garages in Daytona, and there were guys from different teams running out of the garages, running out of their haulers to shake my hand and thank me for doing this,” Ulrich said. “We’re just trying to make it better for everybody. This is what we do, this is our sport, and we’re doing the best we can do to help it in its time of need.

Wallace gives back

NASCAR Hall of Fame member Rusty Wallace, a winner at Auto Club Speedway while racing the No. 2 Pontiac for Roger Penske in 2001, made the decision to give back to the country’s service members.

Earlier this week, the Rusty Wallace Racing Experience announced “Horsepower for Heroes,” an opportunity for active-duty or retired service members to either drive or ride along at the same track where Wallace won his 54th career Cup race. What made the day special was it would have been Dale Earnhardt’s 50th birthday, and Wallace paid tribute by flying an Earnhardt flag. In 1988, he also won the final race at Riverside International Raceway.

This time, it’s the U.S. flag Wallace will honor.

“I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of service members at the track over the years. Their dedication and love for our country is really incredible,” said Wallace, who also shot numerous Miller Lite commercials at the Fontana track. “I’m excited that RWRE is giving back to these heroes and thanking them for their service to our country.

“This is a great chance for us to share the American tradition of stock car racing with some great American heroes.”

RWRE will be at the Fontana track seven times in 2014 (May 10, 17-18, June 14-15, Nov. 1-2) and will select those who are serving, or have serviced, the chance to get a close-up look at stock car racing. Eligible participants, family and friends can submit stories to www.racewithrusty.com.

“This program has our crew really excited. We’re all extremely honored to meet some of our nation’s heroes and their families at our events this year,” said Mark Ebert, president of RWRE. “We encourage everyone to share their hero’s story and we’ll choose several folks to join us at the racetrack during each one of our events.

“Hopefully, this program will put smiles on quite a few faces.”

Southern California racing

Irwindale Speedway will open its 2014 season Saturday night with four divisions and a fireworks show. There will be twin 30-lap races for Late Models, which Rancho Cucamonga’s Ryan Partridge won last year after a spirited battle with Toni McCray of Highland and Upland’s Andrew Porter. ... Perris Auto Speedway is hoping the second time is the charm for the PASSCAR season, set to open Saturday night with Street Stocks, Modifieds, Super Stocks, American Factory Stocks and the CDCRA Dwarf cars. ... Ashley Force Hood, who quit her NHRA Funny Car career to start a family, renewed her license Monday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in impressive fashion. Hood, driving her sister Courtney’s Traxxas Funny Car, posted runs of 4.04, 4.01 and 4.05 seconds, enough to have placed her in the top half of Sunday’s field at the SummitRacing.com Nationals. ... NHRA Street Legals will run Saturday at Auto Club Dragway, with a test and tune session on Sunday.